Visitation
IB English
World Lit Paper 2
The Visit - Pastiche
AN: This one kind of sucks compared to Crushed Daisies. But I can post it anyway!
Ill and Alfred
Preface:
This is a pastiche placed after Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit, in a scene where Claire is burying Alfred Ill's body where she promised. To Claire, however, the Alfred she knew and the Alfred she detested were completely different people.
Also, I attempt to draw a portrait of the Claire that no one sees. The way Durrenmatt writes, one can never see inside Claire's mind. One can never understand Claire. The way Durrenmatt writes her, Claire is a two dimensional character in a three dimensional way – she has become through dynamic traits, but she is now static. I attempt to flesh out some of the emotions she may have felt in regards to the events of the Visit in this pastiche. However, to stay even somewhat true to Durrenmatt's style, I could not fully flesh out Claire Zachanassian's mind. I believe I have effectively managed to balance how Durrenmatt may have written without the form of a script, and at the same time conveyed characters as he was unable to.
Pastiche:
Alfred Ill's funeral had been a fantastic event – Claire had made sure of that herself. Theirs had been a love hate relationship, but once he was gone, she'd banished the hatred to the depths of her memory: it was not fitting, nor was it becoming, for one to hate another past the other's death. Socially speaking, one must always forgive the dead – if one does not, the bereaved complain, and distasteful accusations ensue. Claire Zachanassian was a Zachanassian now – she had no room for the ignorance and petty squabble of lower class life. She'd graduated that. She'd learned.
Claire Zachanassian was always learning: Alfred Ill's funeral had been one of those learning instances. Claire had never known that so much went into a funeral – she'd never thought about casket veils – to keep the flies from dining on the rotting corpse – or embalming fluid, or even about the eulogy she would be expected to deliver at the funeral. Once she'd heard all that was involved, she'd become almost ecstatic – not only would she indirectly kill Alfred, she would be able to celebrate his life in the later funeral. It was ironic. It was an oxymoron. It was Claire.
The funeral hadn't been open casket, for the town's shame would have been reflected in Alfred Ill's face, if they were given chance to see it. Even as it was, the casket was in large part ignored, hidden below a cascade of pink and yellow flowers that were carefully placed just for this purpose. Claire didn't want shame, on anyone's part. Everyone could be happy this way – they could live their lives – no, they could improve their lives. She'd provided the money to ensure that. It almost made her laugh – she owned Guellen. If it prospered, she prospered. And they wondered why she would offer them a million for the death of one man. It took care of two birds with one stone: more wealth, and justice served. And the people, as if by magic, were happy. The funeral had been more like a party, anyway. All the dancing, all the music, all the alcohol, all the food. All of it, of course, paid for by one Claire Zachanassian.
In effect, the whole situation had wrapped itself up neatly. Claire had even managed to bring Ill's casket to the scene with the view of the Mediterranean, and she'd promptly had Roby and Toby dig two holes.
They'd learned not to question Claire's orders.
"Roby, Toby," Claire demanded. "The sedan chair. And load the casket behind me." Claire elegantly stepped up into the chaise, and primly studied the nails on her one remaining hand, waiting for Roby and Toby to carry her. "To the burial site." She surveyed the land around her as Roby and Toby handled the sedan chair, carrying her with almost perfect fluidity.
It was a beautiful place – but then again, that could be said for almost any location with a view of the Mediterranean, for it was a beautiful sea. On almost any given day, one would see a sailboat, or two, or maybe a ship, or a smaller dinghy, loaded with a couple of brothers out to have a lovely day, at fishing, possibly. Or perhaps just relaxing under the warm rays of the burning sun. Claire envied them their freedom, but did not resent it – she merely yearned for a time that the same freedom, the same liberty, had been extended to her.
It suddenly struck her that Alfred Ill's funeral had not been sufficient for her at all. They'd all mourned him as the owner of a general store, as the secure man who they could all rely on, as a moral, an ethical, man. They'd all been aided in some form of another by his generosity, his policies regarding credit. And in the end, all of that – all of his repertoire of kindness and charity – had not quite been worth a million. Claire knew that if she'd come along, offering some amount smaller, the offer would not have been taken. Justice would not have been served.
When she'd left them, the Guelleners had still loved Alfred Ill, as the man they knew him to be. They mourned him as the man they knew him to be. And Claire didn't fit anywhere into the puzzle, except as the reason that Alfred Ill was dead.
She'd never been able to mourn the Alfred that she'd wanted to mourn. The Alfred that had loved her – the Alfred that she'd loved in return. No, she'd been able to mourn – as fake as she had been – the Alfred Ill that had abandoned love for money, her for Matilda. Claire smiled – it would be fixed.
But enough of that. Roby and Toby had set her down, and now she was at the overlook, surveying instead the two holes. Two holes for two bodies. That was the second reason – another reason that Claire hadn't publicly announced – that the funeral had not been open casket: Alfred Ill had not been alone.
"Roby, Toby, the casket."
The two brutes lifted it, hefting it onto their shoulders. Claire smirked. "Over here. By my feet." She gestured with her ivory hand as they levered it around the side of the sedan chair and set it in front of her, their mistress. "Thank you. That will be all. Wait for me over there." Claire waved in the general direction from whence they had come, not caring – her focus had shifted to the coffin.
Hobbling down out of the sedan chair in a show of weakness Claire Zachanassian rarely ever demonstrated, she stepped towards the casket. Smiling bitterly, she shook her head. With her one remaining hand, she lifted the top.
There, in the casket, were two bodies, intertwined by Fate and calculation. There was Alfred Ill, his pale visage made paler by the shadow cast on his face. And there, alas, there was the beautiful black panther – the same that she'd taken to Guellen, the same that had been shot and laid out before Ill's door.
He wasn't so beautiful anymore: his fur, which in life had had a sheen of something blacker than black, had turned almost gray; his once bright, intelligent, striking eyes were forever closed in the kiss of death. Claire knew that if they were opened, they'd be glazed over with a cloudy sheen, and she didn't want to see that. It was hard enough to look at the once taught, well-defined muscles, now limp and decaying. Perhaps the worst part, though, was the shot wound that pierced the flow of the panther's fur, stopped the flow of his body into itself.
Claire knew that shot wound inside and out. That shot was when her black panther had become Alfred Ill, without one look back to her. The chronology didn't matter, only the truth. Only justice.
Leaning down, she felt the whithers of the Black Panther beneath the hand that could still feel. And Ill's face… with her other hand, the ivory one, she touched it. Stone on stone. Straightening up, she called out, "Roby, Toby." They came.
"Get Ill's body out of there. Toss it in the left hole." Roby and Toby followed, executing the order with ease.
She took a breath as if to make a second order, then hesitated and bit her lip. She looked up at the casket, which held the Black Panther alone now. This was how it was supposed to be. Claire bent down, hand on the top to the casket, and a tear fell on the Black Panther's face. "I'll miss you, Alfred." She closed the casket.
"Put Alfred in the right hole. Bury both of them…" Claire Zachanassian trailed off, and a sneer made itself apparent on her face.
"One moment."
She stepped over to the left hole – the one containing Ill. Claire looked down. She spat.
"I hate you."
Word Count: 1,485